


Well, excuse me, princess!

by mirawohoo (metawohoo)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Humor, Weird Romance, apology of the use of kidnapping as a romantic trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metawohoo/pseuds/mirawohoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the eleventh time the Evillustrator went to abduct Chloe Bourgeois, her family's butler knew the boy's favorite tea flavor and which type of coffee biscuits (Amarettis) he preferred. The mayor did not hesitate to pat the boy on the shoulder, and to discuss his life choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 Chloé Bourgeois was so efficient at transforming people into Akumas that Hawk Moth had to turn to recycling. Some of his former victims became villains for a second, sometimes third time. Some of the others, well… They could as well have applied for a frequent flier card and gotten free trips on the house.

The sixth time the Evillustrator abducted Chloé Bourgeois (maybe the seventh, who was still counting?) it was about her spilling nail polish over his sketches, and blaming him for it. The seventh (eighth? Whatever.), it was because she had made Rose cry. The next one, reliable witnesses all agreed on the fact that the only cause of Nathanaël's transformation had been "Chloé looked at him".

By that point, Nathanaël's hatred was bubbling right under the surface, ripe for the picking, and Hawk Moth was considering just sending him a "buy twelve, get two free" package by mail. He considered a subscription model. Under his real identity, he went and patted young miss Bourgeois' shoulder, and told her "you'll go far".

To which she replied "duh, of course".

 

###

 

By the eleventh time the Evillustrator went to abduct Chloe Bourgeois, her family's butler knew the boy's favorite tea flavor and which type of coffee biscuits (Amarettis) he preferred. The mayor did not hesitate to pat the boy on the shoulder, and to discuss his life choices.

"I understand you are young and misguided, but I'm afraid I can't approve of you unless you chose a better career path, really."

"You mean, hero or something equally not evil?" the boy asked.

"What? No! I just mean there's no future in art. Why don't you become a lawyer instead?"

The supervillain gave him a sharp look.

The mayor did not know when to shut up.

"Politics are good too, you know?"

Thankfully for mister Bourgeois, his continued survival, and that of the two-hundred-sixty-two cockroaches the man would save four years later, inadvertently, in a separate accident involving an Akumaized city servant, his daughter chose that moment to make her appearance.

She took one look at the Evillustrator.

"You again", she said.

The boy raised his pencil.

"Come with me", he ordered.

She stomped her foot.

"Come on! Is this the tenth time? The eleventh, now? I have an appointment with my hairdresser. And with my yoga teacher right after that. I won't be available before…" - She looked at her watch - "Seven tonight."

The Evillustrator gaped.

"I'm sorry, _what?_ "

"Seeeee-ven", Chloé repeated. "Not before. I'm busy. Shoo."

And she walked past the gaping supervillain.

He stood there, dumbfounded, until Mister Bourgeois cleared his throat. The Evillustrator blinked.

"Did I hear that right?" he asked, not looking at his intended victim's father.

"I think you did, young man."

"This is not how it works! This is not supposed to be how it works!" the teenager exclaimed, indignant.

The mayor cleared his throat again.

"What do I do, _now_?" the Evillustrator moaned.

"Well, if my experience with Chloé's mother taught me anything, boy… You come back at seven."

 

###

 

The Evillustrator came back at seven, seething, angry, mildly hungry, and decided to exact his revenge in any way that could make Chloé Bourgeois as miserable as she made every soul around her.

Her first words to him were:

"Just be aware that this is. Not. A. Date. Are we clear? This is just an appointment. I'm way out of your league."

He started drawing a guillotine. In retrospect, a dagger would have worked just as well, and required a lot less strokes. She used those few wasted seconds to gesture for the familial limo. The supervillain paused, trying to assess what was happening, and to understand how he had managed to get a nemesis who focused on danger as little as she did.

"Come on!" Chloé called, showing him the car door. "You don't want to be late for the first showing, do you?"

"First sh-"

"Yes. I didn't want to go to the cinema alone, and Sabrina was busy with my chemistry homework, but I _guess_ you can fill in."

"Fill in."

"Yes!" she replied, getting in the car.

She patted the seat next to hers.

Ten minutes later, they both got out of the car, and walked to the cinema's door.

"You are aware I abducted you, right?" the boy pointed out, bemused.

Chloé rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively, looking at the movies list.

"Yes, yes, yes. Just stand around and look threatening."

He stared at her.

"I'm not sure you appreciate the seriousness of the situation."

She let out a long suffering sigh, and turned to him.

"Really, Nathanaël. You have been trying this for a while now, and you are just soooo bad at being a villain. For a start, you never actually hurt me. How am supposed to take you seriously? It's going to be the same as every other time. You'll erase my dresses, and my shoes, and you will draw gigantic sawblades, and then Ladybug will save me, and bring aaaall of my things back."

He clenched his fists.

"And then", Chloé added, inspecting her nails, "it will be as if nothing happened. Like usual. Now, I can be nice, and indulge you, but don't be whiny about it! I hate whining."

He was fuming. _Fuming._ With a capital F.

He drew a pair of scissors.

 

###

 

As it turned out, Ladybug's spells couldn't make hair grow back.

She could turn the Evillustrator back into Nathanaël, she could repair the cinema, but Chloé's hair was something else entirely.

If someone had asked Marinette, she would have admitted not trying very hard.

Chloé got extensions. What she didn't get was a sense of humor, a heart, or an understanding of the concept of forgiveness. As her unending stream of Akumaized classmates had taught her nothing about accountability, she huffed, and puffed, and let her temper out on Nathanaël.

Now, in other circumstances, the boy would have been very apologetic. He was fairly shy. He folded like a cheap suit if you talked loud enough. That being said, Nathanaël did not have the slightest idea of what he was being tormented for, since he had no recollection of abduction eleven, nor of abduction ten, nine, eight, all the way to one.

He was vaguely aware he had been transformed (again), and that he was short a tablet (again). He knew he had done something wrong, but he barely tolerated Chloé to begin with, and now he was being mocked, taunted, railed, ridiculed, insulted, needled, and several new verbs that only applied to Chloé Bourgeois' special brand of verbal torture.

Unsurprisingly, abduction twelve occurred less than forty-eight hours after abduction eleven.

"Hi", said the Evillustrator when Chloé woke in her bed, on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

 

###

 

There was only one reaction one could have when waking in one's bed, on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!" Chloé squealed.

The Evillustrator smirked, sitting on his little floating moon, and floated closer to the teenage girl. She grabbed her covers.

"EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Is this scary enough for you?" he asked.

"EEEEEeeeeeeee. Eee. Eee."

She gasped. Then she moved a little, and realised her bed was quite stable. She took a deep breath.

"HOW DARE YOU! Get me back to my room _right now!_ I need my beauty sleep, you idiot!"

He stared at her. It had gone well for nearly sixty seconds. That was progress, he supposed. Pushing her from the Eiffel Tower _would_ give him some control back, he supposed. But then again, if she died, she would never apologize for being a… Chloé.

She crossed her arms.

"I'm waiting", she huffed.

"I could push you."

"If you _could_ , you would have done it already. I don't think you have the nerve."

She had a point. Maybe he didn't have the nerve. Being evil was a lot more complicated than what the man in his mind seemed to think (on that note, he reminded himself to try to steal the Miraculous after bringing his classmate home).

"Don't test me", he mumbled.

"You know, I think you fancy me."

"I WHAT?"

"Well, why else would you keep coming after me?"

"WHY DO YOU THINK?"

"I just told you what I think. I think you fancy me. You don't have to be ashamed. Many boys do", she said, pushing a blond strand of hair behind her ear.

He spluttered.

"You're blushing", she commented.

"I am not!"

"Of course you are. Freeze!"

"Wh-"

She pointed her phone at him and took a picture, blinding him with the flash light. He nearly fell from his moon. He had to climb back on it (which was easier said than done, what with it being round), and then pretend to be very dignified while she laughed.

Except she wasn't laughing.

"It's not attached to anything! That's actually fairly cool", she said.

Several months of interacting with Chloé Bourgeois had not prepared Nathanaël to hearing something positive come out of her mouth. It didn't register.

"Can I sit on it?" she asked.

"Err."

"Move!"

She climbed next to him, fully expecting him to: a) catch her, b) help her up, c) make himself very small so she would have more space to sit. He did all of that without stopping to think.

"Smile!" she ordered, wrapping a hand around his shoulder, and holding her phone up. "Cheeeeeeese!"

Not thirty seconds later, a picture of a stunned, blushing supervillain and a teenage bully in a Channel nightdress was published on Chloé's facebook profile. It got forty-two likes and twice that many comments.

Someone forwarded it to Adrien Agreste.

Not long afterwards, Chat Noir saved the day.

 

###


	2. Chapter 2

 Marinette and Adrien, separately, and without the slightest idea that they were preoccupied by the exact same issue, kept a close watch on Chloé and Nathanaël. They knew an explosive situation when they saw one, or when they were caught into explosive situations related to the same people twelve times in a row.

Nathanaël was sulking.

So was Chloé.

It had been two weeks since Chat Noir had to collect Chloé from the top of the Eiffel Tower (her bed was still there, as no one had a clear idea of how the Evillustrator had brought it there to begin with, and she had declared she wanted it back, despite the thing not fitting inside the elevators). Through amazing feats of guile and trickery, the blond bully and the red haired artist had been kept apart. But they were often caught staring at each other. Nathanaël spent a fair amount of time looking at his phone, and the picture of his evil self and Chloé sitting on an artificial moon. He flushed a lot. He frowned a lot.

Chloé would give him disapproving side-glances and snort, but that wasn't out of the ordinary.

Still. Marinette and Adrien were in full alert mode. If Nathanaël and his go-to abductee were in close vicinity, Adrien would run to Chloé to ask her opinion about… Well, he would say hello, and she would share her opinion about everything. Marinette would gush over Nathanaël's drawings. A full human barrier would be maintained at all times.

It took thirty-two seconds of distraction from the two heroes for Chloé to stomp across the room and lean over Nathanaël's desk. The sense of foreboding and imminent doom snapped Adrien and Marinet out of their conversation with Alya and Nino. They turned to the back of the class.

They stared in horror.

"Am I not bad enough for you anymore?" Chloé was asking.

The shy, quiet, emotive boy that was Nathanaël gaped.

"W-w-what?"

"You heard me. Why are you here _doodling_ when you could be drawing actual moons and stars. For me. I happen to need them for a selfie."

The redhead opened and closed his mouth, eyes wide.

Adrien and Marinette couldn't move. It was like watching someone light the fuse of an atomic bomb (they were both unclear on the logistics of nuclear weaponry). All of their neurons, including the ones usually tasked with kicking their limbs into motion, were frozen and focused on the impending disaster.

"Here!", Chloé said, grabbing Nathanaël's notebook and waving it under his eyes. "I suppose you have _some_ potential, but what are you doing with it? Nothing, that's what. Frankly, you do better as a villain. At least you are assertive."

Adrien raced to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her away.

"Chloé, I just remembered I needed your opinion on something!" he said. "Please come with…"

Nathanaël stood, in silence, shoulders trembling. His face was hidden under his hair. You could feel the malevolence from a few feet away.

"I'LL SHOW YOU ASSERTIVE!" he yelled, right as glimmering black magic flooded over him.

 

###

 

"Is this going to become a daily thing?" Ladybug asked, while she and Chat Noir observed Chloé and the Evillustrator from a rooftop. "Because it can't turn into a daily thing. I have homework!"

"Tell me about it", Chat Noir replied. "I have after-school activities! Every day!"

They both sighed.

"So, do we stop him or what?" she wondered.

"I don't _know_. He's not harming her or anything", Chat Noir replied.

As a matter of fact, the Akuma and his victim were just arguing, and not very loudly at that.

"What about we observe?" Chat suggested.

"That's stalkerish."

They stopped talking when Nathanäel started drawing. They leaned in, ready to jump and rescue Chloé, but the only thing that appeared was a diamond tiara.

The Evillustrator crossed his arms.

"Here, happy _now_?" he snapped.

Chloé took the flying piece of jewelry and inspected it. She turned it to the left, turned it to the right, put it on and inspected the result through her phone.

"It's too small", she replied, throwing the tiara away. "Also, add some sapphires. It needs to complement my eyes."

The Evillustrator gaped.

"Are you going to make me wait all day?" his victim asked, drumming her fingers on her crossed arms.

"You. You. YOU!" he yelled. "I can't do this. ARGH!"

He jumped away, landing over the school's roof, and walked away.

"Did he just _let her go_?" Chat Noir said, stunned.

"Err, is that what you'd call it?" Ladybug retorted. "And here I thought she only _attracted_ trouble, but even trouble wants nothing to do with her."

"She's not that bad!" Chat Noir protested, weakly, all evidence to the contrary.

Ladybug lifted her eyebrows, rolled her eyes, and shook her head.

"Come on! Let's go get that Akuma!"

 

###

 

Abductions fourteen to twenty went smoothly enough, though Ladybug and Chat Noir would have prefered to see them happen over more than a week. They did have homework. Marinette got a zero on her chemistry assignment. Adrien got a seventeen. His father grounded him.

After that busy week, however, Nathanaël seemed to find some inner peace. He spent his days dutifully drawing in his notebook. The teachers did not approve of his priorities, but what were they going to say to a boy who had turned into a supervillain a total of twenty times?

The redhead paid no attention whatsoever to Chloé Bourgeois. None. When she talked to him (and she did, more and more often), he tuned her out, smiled, and replied "that's nice".

After ten days of that treatment, however, she got fed up of being ignored. She joined Nathanaël at his table in the library, during their lunch break, while he was drawing. She sat next to him, leaned closed, and peeked into his sketchbook. He kept drawing for a second or so before her cloud of perfume permeated his intense concentration. Then he fell off his chair in his hurry to get away from her.

"Is that a comic about Ladybug?" she asked, not bothering to check if he was alright.

Nathanaël got to his feet, picked the chair up, and sat on another one. He snatched his sketchbook and his pen.

"No, but, seriously, is it?" Chloé asked, shifting to the seat next to his. "Let me see!"

He changed chairs. She followed.

"Come oooon!" she whined. "I really like Ladybug. And your drawings don't look that bad."

The boy gave her a look of cautious curiosity.

"I'm not falling for that", he muttered.

She blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm not letting you take a look. Ever."

She grabbed the sketchbook. He pulled it towards him. She pulled the other way. Since he really didn't want the drawings to end up crumpled, he let go.

She grinned and flipped through the pages.

She made no further comments on the quality of the art.

"Say, why don't you transform anymore?"

He glared at her.

"Because", he announced, "every time, Ladybug has to break some of my drawing supplies, and _money is A FINITE RESOURCE!_ "

Chloé, who had never in her life encountered a resource her father could not pay for, or received her pocket money in less than three digits installments, wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"So the Evillustrator won't be showing up anymore?"

"No."

"Never?" she insisted, in a petulant voice.

Nathanaël shrugged.

"Just so you know", Chloé said, taking a closer look at his drawings, "those are very accurate, _but…_ "

Dear reader, out of consideration for the artists among you, let's pause for a moment. Do you draw? Do you paint? Do you otherwise employ your creative abilities to produce art in any form? If you do, you might want to skip the next paragraph, and spare yourself the trauma.

Consider this a fair warning.

Ok, let's resume the story.

"But", Chloé said, "Ladybug has two more black dots on her mask. Right here."

And she took Nathanaël's pencil, and _added said black dots on his drawings._

 

###

 

Abduction twenty-one was not really an abduction, more of an attempted murder.

Nathanaël's parents were called in, and politely asked to get their son some anger management classes.

 

###

 

By abduction twenty-four, the Evillustrator had calmed down enough to resume his strange, antagonistic, yet barely violent relationship with Chloé. It was a very Disneyish level of violence, really, if it even ranked that high. Ratigan was frankly terrifying compared to the Evillustrator.

"I wouldn't want to interfere in your courtship of the girl", Hawk Moth drawled from his lair, when the teenage supervillain and her akumaized companion entered the cinema on a Friday night, "but could you focus on the Miraculous, every now and then?"

"I'm not courting her!" the Evillustrator protested aloud.

"Who are you talking to, now?" Chloé snapped, wrinkling her nose.

"N-no one."

She pointed at the ticket booth.

"I want to see Jem and the Holograms", she announced. "Go buy us tickets."

"Why should _I_ buy the tickets? _You_ dragged me here! And does it look to you like I even have a wallet?"

"Can't you draw some money?"

"NO!"

She huffed and crossed her arms.

He glowered.

"Talk about the worst date ever", she muttered under her breath.

"AND THIS IS NOT A DATE!" he yelled.

Everyone turned to him. Well, the three blind passersby who had not been looking at him already turned. The rest just kept staring, with slightly wider eyes.

"Of course not", Chloé retorted, taking his arm and dragging him to the counter. "Two tickets for Jem. Put it on the Mayor's card."

"Good evening, please, thank you very much", the Evillustrator inserted between her words.

He was blushing. It didn't show, but he could feel his cheeks growing hot. He had no idea why. He did not want to know why.

The underpaid college student working at the counter handed them the tickets.

"Please don't kill me", he whimpered.

Chloé rolled her eyes and dragged her inadequate abductor and unwilling date away.

The boy was made to watch Jem, while Chloé played on her phone, browsed twitter, and sent texts to Sabrina. Like any teenage boy forced to watch a chick flick, alone with a teenage girl, during an outing that had been referred to as a "date", the Evillustrator was overwhelmed by emotions. Namely: confusion and panic.

He could manage a date just fine when he planned it, and had the upper hand, and could do romantic things like create moons and lanterns, and draw music.

The normalcy of the "movies night" situation was extremely stressful.

Like any boy his age, he didn't watch the movie.

He somehow forgot about being in the company of his personal nemesis.

He peeked at her quite a lot.

At some point, he pretended to stretch, and managed to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"It sure took you long enough", she muttered, not looking up from her phone.

 

#####

 


	3. Chapter 3

  It was much easier to stalk the Evillustrator as Marinette Dupain-Cheng than as Ladybug. Especially when you wanted to avoid seeing him start a fight in the middle of a crowded theater. She had followed them from the roofs, then transformed back into herself, and pretended to be extremely interested in watching Jem and the Holograms. She had even paid for a ticket. She would never see that money back.

Once the movie was over (and the existence of a benevolent deity had been proved), she followed Chloé and the Evillustrator out of the room.

She watched as Chloé pushed the Evillustrator's arm away from her shoulders when the lights turned on. She watched as the villain froze and clenched his fists and stood there fuming while Chloé walked away, checking her facebook notifications.

She bumped into Adrien, who was walking out of the same room as her.

She gaped (because it was Adrien), and then she gaped (because he had watched that movie of his own free will). He had no excuse. Just bad taste.

"Oh, hi, Marinette", he said.

"Uh."

"I didn't know you were there, we could have sat together!"

"Uh."

He blinked, waited for a coherent answer, and understood he would get none.

"So, what did you think about the movie?"

"Iiiiiii don't know. I, uh, was just hoping to take notes about the costumes, since it's in the Jem franchise and everything and, you k-know, FASHION. I LIKE FASHION."

He stared at her and glowed, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"YES. THE CLOTHES. My family's company specializes in fashion and it's totally why I came tonight, because of the costumes, ah, ah, ah."

They jumped and turned when they heard a small smacking noise.

Chloé, still scrolling through her facebook messages, was slapping the Evillustrator's hand off her shoulder. If she had been gifted with survival instincts, she probably would have looked at her companion before doing that. Maybe she would have noticed his grim expression. Maybe she would have picked up on the cold rage.

Then again, even with survival instincts, Chloé would still have lacked the slightest trace of empathy. She would not have paid attention to the Evillustrator's anger.

Marinette tried to come up with an excuse to sneak away.

"We should go to the Arc de Triomphe", Chloé announced. "I want to take a few pictures for my instagram. But you'll have to stop the traffic. I don't want cars to ruin the photos."

"I'm leaving", her "date" replied.

That got her to look up.

"What?"

"I'm leaving. Going home."

" _What?_ Why?"

The Evillustrator shrugged and started walking away. Chloé huffed.

"Oh, you're going to be like _that?_ " she snapped, grabbing him by the elbow. "Seriously?"

Marinette gaped. So did Adrien.

The supervillain glowered at their classmate.

"Like what?"

"All gloomy and quiet and sad, you know, like the rest of the time."

She put a hand on his tablet before he could start to draw.

"What is _wrong_ with the rest of the time?" the Evillustrator asked.

Chloé clicked her tongue, and looked up, thinking about it. She wrinkled her nose.

"Well, I wouldn't say there's anything _wrong_ , but there's nothing _interesting_ either. You're just so _boring_ as Nathanaël. No fire, no spark. I think you should stay like _this_ all the time."

"Like this." the villain repeated.

Marinette took a few steps back, figuring she could vanish behind a door.

Adrien did the very same thing, going in the exact same direction.

"Don't you think you're much better off this way?" Chloé said.

The Evillustrator bit the inside of his cheek, violet magic flickering around his hands.

"You want me. To stay. Like this. For your personal enjoyment, that's it?"

"Well, duh, of course. But it would be good for you too! Look how much more confident you are!"

The magic spread all over the boy, swallowing him, then falling away, leaving him pink-skinned, red-haired, and uncostumed.

"Well, _excuse me,_ princess, but your villain is in another castle!" he yelled, walking away.

Marinette watched him go, eyes wide.

Had he just done that? _Had he just done that?_

 

###

 

Nathanaël stormed out of the theater, down the street, and across town until he arrived at the park. He sat under a tree, pretended not to have spotted Ladybug and Chat Noir, who were following him from the rooftops, and banged his head against his knees.

Breaking out of the possession had given him a few things back: his mind, his haircut, his skin tone, and his memories. All of them. From that disastrous date with Marinette, during his first transformation, to this very last meeting with Chloé. He also remembered all of the other "abductions" with vivid clarity.

The good thing was that he could finally understand how so many pictures of his evil self had ended up on Instagram. Not that he was glad they had been posted, but he felt some grim satisfaction at finally discovering the explanations behind them, instead of having to listen to the rumors.

The bad thing was that he was now in full possession of his brains, and could examine why exactly his half-assed attempts against Chloé Bourgeois' life numbered in the twenties. He could not lie to himself, and pretend it was all about throwing her off really tall monuments just like she deserved. No. He had to face the terrifying, horrendous truth that he was madly and hopelessly in love with a cruel, conniving, heartless bully of a girl.

Well, maybe just a part of him was. Or maybe it was the black butterfly, who had found a kindred spirit in Chloé.

Chloé sure only cared about that specific part of himself, however. As was to be expected.

He banged his forehead against his knees some more.

Ladybug and Chat noir cautiously joined him.

"Nathanaël?" Ladybug asked. "Are you alright?"

He nodded without looking up.

She moved closer, and crouched.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Chat Noir hopped closer.

"So, uh, how are you feeling?"

"Normal."

"Oookay."

The two heroes looked at each other.

"So what do we do?" the girl whispered to her partner.

"I have no idea", Chat Noir replied.

Ladybug cleared her throat.

"So. Nathanaël. Did you by any chance see where the black butterfly went? You know the drill, by now. It hides in your stuff, we catch it, we fix everything..."

"No", the redhead lied, giving his pencil to the superheroïn. "It's not in there anymore."

The butterfly was in his chest. He could feel it beat his wings next to his heart. That being said, he was not in the mood to endure Ladybug's attempts to get it out, especially when she clearly had no idea of what was going on.

"Okay, time out", Ladybug said, dragging her partner away.

Nathanaël listened to their muffled brainstorming.

"This has never happened before!" Chat Noir was saying. "No, I don't have an idea."

"If it hasn't flown away, then where is it?"

"Like you don't know that!"

"Of course I know that! I wanted to see if you were thinking the same thing."

"So what do we do?"

"We can hardly break him to get it out, can we?"

"There has to be another way!"

Nathanaël sighed and got to his feet.

"I'm alright, really", he said.

They stared at him.

"I'm alright", he repeated. "Fine. All good."

"Uh", Chat Noir mumbled.

"Now, I, don't panic or anything", Ladybug said, "but we think the Akuma might have jumped from the pencil, to, uh, again, _don't panic_ , you."

Nathanaël looked at her, and did not panic. That surprised her.

"I mean, it could-"

"It doesn't matter", the boy cut in, shaking his head. "I'm not even angry anymore."

He walked away.

 

###

 

Ladybug and Chat Noir, Nathanaël mused, had a fairly limited grasp of the concept of secret identities. That thought occurred to him as black-haired Marinette, on his right, gushed over his drawings, while blond Adrien, on his left, talked and talked about how amazing his art was and how he should totally try to have his comics published. They had cornered him in the library, while he was drawing, and would not let go.

Among the concepts those two had a limited grasp of, you could find "introverts".

Nathanaël was trying to tune them out. He was growing tired very, very quickly. The worst thing was that - since neither of them seemed to realize who the other was - they _both_ came to ensure he was remaining calm, happy, and not evil. They didn't trust a "civilian" with that task.

He considered telling them who they were, but that would have meant letting them know that he - as a possessed teenage boy and recurring enemy - was aware of their identities.

He longed for the lunch break to be over so that he could escape them. He had never prayed for chemistry class before.

His day couldn't possibly get worse.

Or so he thought.

He had often be told that he was a dreamer, and that life would never go the way he hoped it to. That proved true when Chloé joined them their table, taking the seat facing Nathanaël's.

"Oh, Chloé!" Adrien exclaimed. "How are you today?"

"Wow, Chloé!" Marinette said at the same time. "What a lovely, mh, nailpolish you have today!"

"Why, thank you, I just had it done. I could give you my salon's address, if you think it's lovely. Obviously, you need to find a new one."

Nathanaël closed his eyes.

Marinette managed to restrain herself from punching Chloé in the face. She spluttered instead. Adrien tried to get the attention of his childhood friend.

"So, Chloé! I was about to get back to class. We could go together, I feel like we haven't really talked, lately."

"Maybe another day", the blonde replied.

The redhead closed his sketchbook.

Marinette made a choked noise.

"So, about that nail salon", she forced out in the fakest amicable tone possible. "You are sooooo right. Could you give me that address now, please?"

She sounded (and looked) like she would have more gladly swallowed acid than uttered another word. Her smile was twitching at the corners.

Nathanaël pushed his chair away, collected his things, and walked away.

Chloé called after him right as he reached the exit.

"Wait! About yesterday…"

He turned to her, glared, then opened the door and left the library. He slammed the door.

Then, not a second later, he let the Akuma's magic swallow him, and transformed. He leaned against the wall, and clenched his teeth, and fought the urge to storm back inside to abduct Chloé Bourgeois yet another time.

 

###

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm bashing the Jem movie, but I'd like to HEAVILY recommend the new comic, it's fantastic.


	4. Chapter 4

 Much to Marinette and Adrien's relief, the Evillustrator was in no hurry to resurface. It allowed both of their grades to recover a little, and they were no longer dragged out of bed to rescue Chloé from the top of various touristic locations.

The two of them still tried their best to keep Nathanaël calm and happy (and Adrien was starting to resent all the attention his cute classmate was giving to the redhead, though he couldn't quite explain why he felt that way).

Nathanaël, however, seemed quite able to handle Chloé on his own. If she walked into the same room, he left. If she looked at him, he looked away. If she talked to him, his replies were of the monosyllabic variety, or onomatopoeia.

In short, he was acting like Nathanaël.

Chloé was used to being avoided. More precisely, the rest of the world's tendency to flee from her like from the black plague had never quite impacted her. She could not quite conceive that someone might _not_ revel in the joy of her delightful company, and she never paid the slightest attention to other people unless she needed something from them. The conjunction of those two traits made for an outlook on life that didn't leave room for cognitive dissonance.

In short, she didn't mind being avoided: she never noticed.

However, between her sudden and surprising interest in the Evillustrator, and Nathanaël's not so subtle "slam the door in your face" approach of avoidance, some suspicions were slowly permeating her very thick skull.

Adrien, being her childhood friend, tended to see her through rose-tinted glasses, and would not have noticed the change. Marinette, however, could see that the wicked witch of the school was showing signs of mild concern. Or signs of digestive unrest (a distinct, and much more likely, possibility).

Both could see Chloé was employing quite a lot of energy to get them away from Nathanaël so she could talk to him.

They stood strong.

 

###

 

Nathanaël had not, so far, turned into a supervillain to slaughter Marinette and Adrien with the help of imagined weaponry, but he was sorely tempted.

He appreciated their concern.

He appreciated solitude more.

As he was, at heart, a nice boy, he tried to come up with a way to get rid of them without resorting to lethal force.

He had observed their interactions, in various combinations (Adrien and Marinette, Ladybug and Chat Noir, Chat Noir and Marinette), and had come to a conclusion that was obvious to anyone but the two of them: they were besotted. Crazy about each other. Lovesick. Soulmates. The stuff of legends and bad Harlequin novels.

"Say", he asked Adrien. "Do you think Marinette has forgiven me about that time I turned evil and asked her on a date?"

Adrien blinked.

Nathanaël moved in for the kill.

"Because… I'd like to ask her out, but I'm not sure how she will take it."

His classmate froze, as that announcement could not sit right with him, even if he did not know why. No boy would have been alright with the prospect of the girl he unknowingly loved (but subconsciously recognized as the love of his life) being asked out by someone else. At least, Nathanaël supposed so. It was quite an unique situation. Not that he was in a position to throw stones, not about alternate identities.

The blond sputtered.

"Er, I am not… I mean…"

And then Nathanaël watched him _turn_ into Chat Noir, without actually _transforming_. His hesitation vanished, there was no longer a trace of panic to be seen in him. He wrapped an arm around Nathanaël's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, but, you know, Marinette, I'm afraid she, well, likes someone else. I know. That's very sad."

"Oh? Really? Who?" the redhead asked.

"Uh, actually…"

"It's Chat Noir, isn't it? I thought they were really close the last time I saw them together."

Adrien choked on his own saliva, which forced him to swallow his Cheshire Cat grin.

Nathanaël blinked.

"I'm sorry, did you mean someone else? I mean, the only other boy she seems to spend time around is you."

He watched his classmate cough and tear up (it served him right for lying, really), then tapped his back so he wouldn't asphyxiate.

"Are you okay?"

"What makes you think she likes Chat Noir?" Adrien exclaimed.

"I was there when he rescued her, you know, from me. She trusted him _totally_."

The blond gaped.

The black butterfly inside Nathanaël's chest made a happy little dance, and the boy pushed it down to prevent an impromptu transformation.

"Oh", he said. "Oh. You meant you. You meant the two of you like each other. I… I mean, I was probably wrong about Chat Noir! She _was_ being saved from a supervillain."

"I'm sorry, I have to go!" Adrien said, all but running away.

Nathanaël watched him go. Chloé, who had felt a disturbance in the force, appeared from the closest corner.

"What did you just _tell_ him?" she asked. "I have never seen a look like that on his face."

The redhead stomped on his internal butterfly with both mental feet so the Evillustrator would not pop right out of his heart. He coolly turned to Chloé.

"I don't know. I was just telling him Chat Noir likes Ladybug, really."

"REALLY?"

 

###

 

Ladybug looked down at Nathanaël and Chloé from her perch on one of the park's trees. The redhead was sitting on a bench, doodling, and the blond bully was polishing her nails right next to him. Every now and then, the girl took a look at his art. Every "very often", the boy took a long look at her profile.

"Is it me", Ladybug asked an unusually silent Chat Noir, "or is she being _nice_ to him?"

Her partner leaned forward and took a look.

"She's acting normal."

"No one ran off crying in the last ten minutes and Nathanaël has not transformed. That's not Chloé-normal."

"Why do you always say bad things about her? You are being way too harsh!"

"Excuse-me if I have a problem with a girl who has turned so many classmates into villains that she could as well be Hawk Moth's personal assistant!" Ladybug exclaimed.

"She's not that bad."

"She's bad enough that this is not _normal_ ", Marinette said, pointing at Chloé, who was polishing her nails without voicing any forms of criticism about Nathanaël, what he was doing, or life in general.

"It's not like you know her when no Akumas are involved", he mumbled.

Ladybug could envision several conversations she would rather have had than arguing about her thoughts on Chloé Bourgeois, including discussions about the reproductive habits of slugs or similarly slimy topics.

"It's going… Strangely well", she said. "I was afraid the school would go up in flames while Marinette was on that dentist appointment."

Chat Noir choked. She blinked and turned to him.

"Marinette?"

"That girl who helped you against the Evillustrator", Ladybug explained. "I asked her to keep Chloé away from Nathanaël."

"YOU DID?"

Half the passerbys turned to their tree. Ladybug tried to hide her vivid red, "super stealthy hahaha right?" outfit behind the leaves. A little child waved to her. His parents lifted their eyebrows. She waved back.

"That was very discreet", she commented, with a side look at Chat Noir.

"Sorry. D-do you know that Marinette girl well?"

"A… Little?" Ladybug replied, hesitant.

"So do you know if she likes me or something? I've been told she does."

She stared at him in total disbelief for a second or so, then collapsed into laughter.

"Whaaaat?" she asked once she could breathe again. She wiped her eyes. "Who told you that?"

"The boy who is keeping an eye on Nathanaël for me."

"You have someone keeping an eye on N… ADRIEN AGRESTE?" she screamed, as horrified understanding dawned.

"Hush! And yes."

They didn't notice Nathanaël, on his bench, rolling his eyes.

" _Adrien Agreste thinks Marinette likes you_?" Ladybug blurted out.

"Yes! And I don't see why it's that funny", Chat Noir mumbled, a bit offended.

"Oh my god, this is terrible. You have to tell that boy he's wrong!"

"Why do you make it sound like it would be the end of the world if I don't?"

"Because. And you must not tell him that, at all, I'm not supposed to tell anyone…"

"I'm all _pointy_ ears?"

Ladybug took a deep breath. IT WAS A DISASTER. A disaster. A _disaster._ She had to fix that. She would never have a chance with Adrien if he believed she had a crush on someone else. Even Chat Noir. Especially Chat Noir.

"Because", she announced, "Marinette likes _Adrien Agreste._ He can't go around thinking she likes someone else!"

Her partner froze so totally that she had to look around to check if Lady Wifi had not reappeared. That possibility discarded, she waved a hand in front of his face.

" _Really_?" he murmured.

"Really."

Chat Noir gaped some more.

Nathanaël allowed himself a satisfied smile.

"Are they aware we can hear every word they say?" Chloé asked, inspecting her nail polish under the sun.

The redhead turned to her, still smiling (it was no longer out of satisfaction: he found his lips did that on their own when he looked at Chloé, lately).

"I don't think so."

Chloé rolled her eyes.

"If Adrien didn't notice how Marinette kept making googly eyes at him, he's not about to believe _that_ ", she muttered. "That little minx doesn't have a c… Wait. I thought you fancied Marinette. Why are you smiling?"

"I don't know."

Chloé huffed.

"You are so weird. Anyway, as I was saying, _that_ is not happening. Marinette is not Adrien's type."

"Do you really care?" Nathanaël asked, his stomach twisted into a knot.

"Of-"

Chloé closed her mouth. She thought about it. Her eyes went wide. Then she frowned, wrinkled her nose, lifted her eyebrows, and went through every expression in the known spectrum of human emotion.

"I-"

He grinned, and handed her his sketchbook.

"I'm done with this one", he said, showing her the portrait he had just finished drawing. "What do you think?"

It was a very good portrait. Of her.

She blinked and looked at it.

It took her a few moments to come up with a reaction that fit her personality while not being overly harsh.

"It's _decent_ , I guess. Now, my eyelashes are a little longer, aren't they?"

He smiled and pretended to fix that.

 

####


	5. Chapter 5

Much to Marinette’s relief, Adrien was no longer keeping a close eye on Nathanaël, which meant Chat Noir had told him their randomly evil classmate was already taken care of. She hoped he had also told him that the entire “Marinette likes Chat Noir” idea was a terrible misunderstanding.

She couldn’t tell, because Adrien was making himself scarce.

 

###

 

“I have a question”, Adrien asked Nino.

“I’m listening?”

Adrien flushed and cleared his throat.

“What do you think of Marinette?”

Nino gaped for a second.

“Why?”

“I’m just wondering.”

Nino gave him a knowing smile.

“Riiiight, dude.”

“Forget I asked.”

“I think she is a very nice and very pretty girl who might be hot-tempered-and-awkward-at-times-but-has-a-heart-of-gold-and…” - He got a crumpled, old piece of paper out of his wallet, and started reading. - “And, uh, AND she would do anything for her loved ones. Also she has a perfect sense of fashion and so much talent and she should really design clothes for young, blond, male models.”

Adrien took a look at the paper.

“Is that Alya’s handwriting?”

“Er, no?”

 

###

 

A minute after the bell had rang for recess, Chloé entered the schoolyard, followed by her “BFF” and her “BF?”. Sabrina was eagerly trotting at her side. Nathanaël was quietly trailing behind. The two redheads had a lot in common: their unexplainable happiness in Chloé’s company, the color of their hair, and their lack of a soul. Their being ginger had nothing to do with the soul problem. They had started out with one, just like everyone else. If Sabrina and Nathanaël now lacked that precious part of themselves, it was because Chloé had assumed possession of theirs.

She found a spot with perfect exposure (both to the eyes of her fellow students, and to the sun), and started flipping through Nathanaël’s sketchbook.

It was becoming an habit: he would draw a few pages of his “The Tiny Menace Ladybug” comic, and she would read it. She scarcely commented on the quality of it, and never with more than a terse “not bad”. She liked the plot, however. She had requested a fight scene with a crime lord, and the occasional car chase. She suggested improvements for Nathanaël’s imaginary villains (all of them both excellent and beyond evil, which made Nathanaël a little worried).

“So what happens next?” She asked when she arrived the last page he had drawn.

It showed Ladybug falling to her death after being defeated by the “Aviator” villain, which was kind of a terrible situation. It made for beautiful visuals (and a distinct lack of buildings to draw), which was why Nathanaël had added it. He had not really considered how to save Ladybug yet.

“You will see”, he replied.

An older student, preppy, stylish, red-haired and soulless (still not because of the hair, but due to a terrible education given by divorced parents who had spoiled their child into preferring one of them over the other, instead of raising her), walked by.

“Oh. My. God! Chloé, are you talking to that dork?”

Nathanaël tensed, clutching his sketchbook against his chest.

Chloé looked at the newcomer, blinked, and raised her eyebrows.

“Which dork?” She replied, already shaking her head and turning back to Nathanaël.

The redhead froze at her words, examining the maelstrom of emotions they had awoken in him, and trying to pick one. He had a lot to pick from:

* Surprise

* Shock

* Happiness

* Pride

* Shyness

* Modesty

* Boiling rage at that other girl

* Intense affection for the person of Chloé Bourgeois

He settled on “overwhelming joy”. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach, and everywhere else.

Which meant Chloé gasped and jumped out of her bones when she turned, as she had not expected to find herself nose to nose with a grinning Evillustrator.

Nathanaël had kept his alter-ego religiously locked up for the last few days. The more Chloé wanted to see the villain, the more the boy wanted to punish her, and he had. He could transform at will, really. But he wanted her to know he existed. He wanted her to take her words back. He wanted her to admit that _maybe_ there was some fire in him too. Some spark.

Hearing her _not_ call him a dork had made his heart leap out of his chest.

Chloé took a deep breath.

“You surprised me!”

He had surprised everyone: Sabrina was gaping, as was that red-haired older student, and… Not that many other students, actually. People were getting used to seeing him transform at school.

He grinned.

“I’m sorry”, he said, looking down at his tablet.

He drew a line, then two, then more, and a twirling staircase appeared.

 

###

 

“NATHANAËL!”, mister Damocles shouted from the foot of the fairy tale glass tower standing in the middle of his school’s courtyard. “YOU CANNOT BUILD FAIRY TALE GLASS TOWERS IN THE SCHOOL’S COURTYARD!”

The Evillustrator looked down from his window, at the top of the tower, and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes I can!”

“No, you _cannot_.”

“I just did!”

Mister Damocles groaned.

“Ability set aside, you are not ALLOWED to!”

The Evillustrator frowned.

“Let me get back to you in just a minute!” he said, turning to Sabrina, who was sitting next to Chloé on a crystal sofa covered in crystal cushions.

The cushions should maybe have been a little less mineral and a little more fluffy, now that he thought about it.

“The headmaster says I was not allowed to build this. Is that true?”

Sabrina smiled, adjusted her glasses, and fished her school rules booklet out of her bag. She flipped through the pages, read one from top to bottom, and sighed. Her shoulders sagged.

“The erection of defensives structures on the school grounds is strictly prohibited”, she quoted. “It seems the rule was established after the great snowball war of 2007, to prevent the students from ever building barricades again.”

“Oh”, the Evillustrator said. “Oh. Alright.”

He returned to the window, and leaned forward.

“Okay”, he told the headmaster. “Apparently, you are right.”

“Of course I am! Now could you please remove this?” the old man said, gesturing at the tower.

The Evillustrator rolled his eyes.

“No.”

“What do you mean, _no?_ ”

“I mean ‘why would I?’. I don’t _want_ to.”

The headmaster spluttered.

The supervillain doodled a little something on his magic tablet, and a gerbil sized dragon appeared at the foot of the tower. It burped a tiny ball of fire on the headmaster’s shoes. A rolled up parchment floated to the man.

He grabbed it, and unrolled it, while the Evillustrator returned inside and went to sit next to Chloé.

“The next one will be bigger”, the letter said.

 

###

 

Chat Noir watched Ladybug tickle the belly of the miniature dragon that was guarding the Evillustrator’s tower.

“It’s so cute!” she squealed. “Look at that, it’s like a tiny, scaly, fire-breathing hamster.”

Chat Noir stared into the distance, from behind the walls of confusion that had become his new mental residence.

He would have preferred to never discover that Marinette fancied him. He would have prefered to never discover that his classmates were not only waiting for them to get together, but had named their future children (twin blond girls and a younger, black haired boy), composed their wedding theme, and produced an illustrated guide on “how to encourage the budding feelings of dimwits”.

He was not as horrified as he should have been by the prospect of children, even three of them, which was fairly problematic for a fifteen years old boy. That being said, he didn’t spend much time focusing on the “ten years down the line” scenario. The immediate “now” was confusing enough.

He had discovered that Marinette’s inability to be coherent when flustered was very contagious. He had lost the ability to even _greet_ her in the morning, when he had been shamelessly flirting with her as Chat Noir. HE WAS ABLE TO FLIRT SHAMELESSLY. He absolutely was. But, apparently, not with a girl he had a chance with.

 _Are you only able to flirt with Ladybug because you know it_ _’s hopeless?_ He wondered.

Not that he planned to flirt with Marinette, because he was in love with Ladybug (hopelessly or not), but being able to use any kind of words around her would have been nice.

“So, are we getting them out or not?” his partner asked, releasing the dragon.

They heard the sounds of footsteps on glass, and looked up to see Sabrina walk down the spiral staircase that led out of the glass tower. She looked very pensive, and bumped into Chat Noir on her way out.

“Are you okay?” he asked, steadying her.

“Yes, yes”, she replied, still looking up.

She frowned.

Ladybug put a hand on her shoulder.

“Is everything alright?”

“Are you going to go up there?” Sabrina asked.

“We kind of have to. I think.”

“But that means he’ll attack you again, doesn’t it?”

Ladybug and Chat Noir sighed.

“Yep.”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think he has a choice”, Ladybug commented. “What are they doing up there?”

“He’s drawing music!” Sabrina exclaimed. “That’s sooo sweet!”

Chat Noir blinked.

“He _is?_ ”

“Of course he would”, Ladybug replied.

Her partner turned back to Sabrina.

“Is Chloé alright?” he asked. “Is she trying to run away?”

The redhead stared at him as if questioning his mental abilities.

“Why would she? _He is drawing music._ ”

“What’s so special with drawing music?” Chat snapped.

His classmate and his fellow superhero replied in one voice.

“EVERYTHING.”

He opened and closed his mouth. He cleared his throat.

“So, uh, what do we do, My Lady?” he asked in a subdued tone.

Sabrina raised her hand.

“You know, Chloé has a yoga lesson at five, and she wouldn’t miss it. You can probably just wait.”

 

###

 

They waited.

A few minutes before five o’clock, Chloé walked out of the tower, followed by the Evillustrator. She dismissed him with a distracted gesture and climbed into the white limo that was waiting for her. The supervillain watched the car drive away, then transformed back into Nathanaël.

Chat Noir and Ladybug observed him as he lifted both hands to his face to hide his blush and gigantic grin.

“Well”, Ladybug muttered. “I don’t understand it at _all_ , but I guess it could have been worse.”

 

####


	6. Chapter 6

The tower remained.

Nathanaël pretended he had no idea how to remove it.

The Evillustrator refused to.

Ladybug and Chat noir genuinely had no idea how to take it down, though Cataclysm was considered.

The students grew used to having a gigantic medieval structure made of glass in the middle of the schoolyard. The headmaster and teachers grew resigned. The mayor gave them a call encouraging them to show more approval for spontaneous artistic additions to the area’s architecture.

Weeks went by.

 

###

 

Chloe’s weekly schedule included two so-called “abductions”, since she had a very busy schedule that involved yoga, hair maintenance, and calling Sabrina to make sure she had done all of her homework every day.

For her and Nathanaël, things did not quite evolve. They contented themselves with each other’s companionship, and the Evillustrator added all of the sparks and fire a young and demanding bully could desire.

Dimwits with budding feelings like Marinette and Adrien, however, loved to make their own lives complicated.

 

###

 

Week one post glass tower, Adrien Agreste tried to have a full conversation with Marinette Dupain-Cheng, complete with syllables and sounds and breathing.

 

###

 

Week two post glass tower, Adrien Agreste tried again, and - this time - managed to blurt a “hello” out.

 

###

 

Week two and two days post glass tower, Adrien found he was struggling with the guilt of committing emotional infidelity.

He decided it was unfair to Marinette to even try to approach her why he was madly in love with Ladybug, and stopped pursuing his young classmate.

She had not noticed his attempts.

 

###

 

Week four post glass tower, Valentine’s Day occurred.

Despite being the proud owners of a very impressive glass tower, Chloé and Nathanaël stuck to the library. Years of drawing during science classes had not given the Evillustrator much of an understanding of heat conservation, nor of the engineering required to maintain a glass tower’s temperature above freezing levels.

Nathanaël spent the recess of the fourteenth of February drawing at one of the library’s tables, while Sabrina ate Chloé’s Valentine chocolates, and while Chloé herself opened and criticized all of the cards she had received. The pile was very high.

Her “relationship to be defined” redheaded companion averaged one facial expression by card.

Card one? Mild concern. Card two? Worse concern. Card three? “Please shut up, Chloé”. Card ten? A roll of the eyes. Card fifteen? Amusement.

He was fairly surprised the blonde could come up with so many variations of “that loser doesn’t stand a chance”.

“I mean, why would I even _look_ at him, with an haircut like that?” she mumbled about the sixteenth boy, passing the card to Sabrina so she would tear it up and throw it away. “Why can’t they leave me alone?”

All the while, she was not so secretly reveling in the attention, and congratulating herself for receiving more cards than the previous year.

Now, facial expressions didn’t mean much from a boy who hid two thirds of his face behind his hair, two thirds of his emotions behind a wall of social anxiety, and an evil spirit underneath all of that. His features didn’t quite betray the possessiveness he was bottling up.

When Chloé opened card seventeen and started ranting, he decided enough was enough. He turned to her, took her face in his hands, transformed, and kissed her full on the mouth. He made it last just long enough for her to realize what was happening (near a full minute), then quietly turned back to his drawing, becoming Nathanaël again.

He added a few lines to his comic page.

“W-What was THAT?” Chloé spluttered.

Nathanaël didn’t look up from his drawing.

“Now, they’ll leave you alone”, he pointed out in his most neutral tone.

“What?”

“You just said you wanted those boys to stop with the cards. Well, a supervillain should scare them off”, he explained, gesturing at the shell-shocked lovesick boys who had been observing Chloé’s reactions to her collection of cards from various corners of the library.

The blonde gaped. Sabrina muffled her chuckles with chocolate.

Nathanaël went back to drawing magical shockwaves over the Seine.

Chloé sulked, torn between “you ruined my fun” and “you kissed me and I will deny that I loved it to the end of my days”.

“You can’t just do that!” she complained.

He turned to her and smiled.

“May not”, she amended, huffing, even though she meant the exact opposite.

“Alright”, Nathanaël replied, focusing on his art again.

She stared at him. She frowned. She drummed her fingernails on the table. When the boy failed to pay attention to that, she collected all of her remaining cards into a neat little pile, and repeatedly slammed the bottom of the pile on the table so the cards’ borders would align. She handed it to Sabrina, so she could dispose of it. The girl trotted away.

Chloé looked at Nathanaël, chin up.

“I didn’t see you give me one of those”, she said.

“I didn’t.

She took a long breath.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to date you”, he replied matter-of-factly.

Dear reader, I think we have established by now that Chloé Bourgeois was not in possession of a heart (not hers, anyway), but her ego was so large it adequately filled the gap. Hearing those words, from a boy who had occupied at least one of her thoughts a day for several weeks, and who had just _kissed her_ , hurt a little. And by that, I mean it made her discover a level of emotional pain she had never felt before in her life. On a scale of one to ten, for everyone else, it would probably have been ranked a “three”, but to the unaccustomed, it was _bad_.

She promptly retreated to the safe territory of exploding rage.

“AND WHY NOT?”

“Because you are not very nice”, Nathanaël pointed out, keeping his eyes down.

She jumped to her feet, furious.

“How _dare you_ say that? I’ve been exceedingly nice to you! I’ve been making… Sabrina! What is the word for ‘doing something that you would usually not do because it’s not worth the bother and the energy?’”, she asked her best friend, who was returning to their table.

“Efforts?” the red-headed girl hazarded.

“I’ve been making _efforts_ ”, Chloé yelled.

Nathanaël closed his sketchbook.

“I know”, he said.

“THEN WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?”

“You’re still horrible to everyone else.”

“HOW. IS. THAT. _RELEVANT_?”

The boy looked up, uneasy, his voice low.

“Not so long ago, I was everyone else”, he explained, swallowing hard. “I didn’t like it.”

His words scratched at something atrophied and long-forgotten in Chloé, that still somehow resembled guilt, despite the thick layer of dust and spider webs. She didn’t like it: she was already overwhelmed by average levels of emotional pain. She crossed her arms.

“It’s not my fault everyone is overly sensitive”, she snapped.

Nathanaël didn’t answer.

“And if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best”, she added.

He remained silent.

She waited.

That little fossilized thing ate away at her. She bit her lower lip.

“I’m not going to change who I am for you!” she said (not softly, but without yelling).

He gave her a sad smile.

“I know”, he said, softly. “That’s why I didn’t give you a card.”

She stared at him.

He took a deep breath, turned away, and collected his drawing supplies.

She watched him leave.

She didn’t feel so good.

 

###

 

On that very same evening, Chat Noir greeted Ladybug with roses, candles, and a love confession.

She very gently, but very firmly, turned him down, shattering his heart in the process.

 

###

 

Week four and three days post glass tower, the Evillustrator abducted Chloé Bourgeois, took her on a magic carpet ride, showing her the world shining, shimmering, splendid, and all that jazz.

 

###

 

Adrien gave himself some time to recover from the heartbreak. He tried to hold onto hope, but… His lady had been very honest with him, and she sincerely loved someone else, didn’t she?

Week eight post glass tower, he tried to flirt with Marinette.

As “flirting” was not his specialty, since he had never practiced the activity out of costume, he went for the most perfect, smooth and suave Chat Noir impersonation. The results he reaped were not as positive as he expected. For a start, Marinette stared at him in stunned silence, then made a weird snorting noise that sounded like a strangled giggle. Nino gaped in abject horror. Even Chloé stared at him as if he had lost his mind. Also, Alya tried to make Adrien understand the errors of his ways by loudly humming “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne. It accomplished nothing, save for sticking the song into Adrien’s head for the entire day.

“Uh”, Marinette muttered. “D-did you, I don’t know, spend a lot of time with Chat Noir, lately?”

Adrien blinked.

“I, er, a little?”

“Iiiiiiii thought so”, Marinette replied, inching away from his invasion of her personal space.

Adrien promptly took a step back and felt like the floor had been removed from under his feet.

The two of them exchanged a few more words, before Alya rescued her best friend, dragging her out of the school.

“Wow”, Nino commented.

“What?” Adrien asked, with increasing panic. “WHAT?”

Chloé answered him.

“Whatever what you just did was - I’m saying this as a friend - don’t ever, ever do it again. Oh. My. God.”

Nino, being a slightly less direct friend, wrapped a reassuring arm around Adrien’s shoulders.

“Don’t listen to her, it wasn’t that bad.”

“AND YOU CALL YOURSELF HIS FRIEND?” Chloé exclaimed.

Adrien spent the next week trying to vanish into the floor.

 

###

 

As harsh as they were, those comments didn’t grind Adrien’s heart and self-esteem to dust. Marinette did. Not that she did that on purpose.

“I’m sorry I reacted like that”, she said, in one of her first coherent sentences to him ever. “It’s just… I didn’t expect it, and Chat Noir acted the exact same way, so it didn’t feel like you at all.”

 

###

 

Adrien gave up on Marinette too. They were now able to use their full vocabulary in front of each other, however, so they ended up building a comfortable, if painful, friendship.

 

###

 

More weeks went by.

 

###

 

Around her fifty-seventh abduction, at the age of sixteen, following a sequence of events that - like everything in her life - involved an absolute lack of common sense, evil spirits, and nail polish, Chloé received her Miraculous..

It changed her.

…

HAHAHAHAHAHA. That was a good one.

It didn't.

Not even a little bit.

To better illustrate how, exactly, it did not change her at all, let us depict her exact reaction upon transforming into a bee-themed super-hero. She wrapped her arm around Ladybug's shoulders, took a picture of both of them, and posted it online.

"I'm going to go viral!" she exclaimed.

"Err. Yes. I'm sure it is going to be quite a buzz", Chat Noir replied in his gloomiest voice.

"AkumaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH", Ladybug screamed, right before their villain of the day blasted them.

Let us also summarize the extent of Queen Bee's participation to the defeat of that enemy: none. She filmed the entire fight, however. And put it on Youtube. The video gathered about two millions views, and it ended up on Alya's blog.

 

###


	7. Chapter 7

 "Bye bye, little butterfly", Ladybug said, releasing the purified Akuma.

She watched it fly away, bumped fists with Chat Noir, and helped the marine biologist who had turned into "Lord Coelacanth" out of the Paris aquarium.

Then she whirled to Queen Bee.

"Are you done filming now?" she snapped.

The so far mysterious new miraculous holder put her phone away.

"Yes", she replied, oblivious to Ladybug's murderous mood. "This is going to get so many views!"

She looked around, saw that there were no more witnesses, and turned back into Chloé. A yellow kwami popped up next to her and landed on her shoulder.

Chat Noir and Ladybug gaped.

Chloé gave her hair a stylish brush of the hand, and smiled confidently.

"We have met before, so I'm sure you remember me, but… Hello! I'm Chloé, and I'm your new teammate!" she announced. "And this is Waspp."

The kwami gave a little wave of the hand, looking bored.

The corner of Ladybug's mouth twitched.

"Chloé?" Chat Noir said. "Chloé?"

"I quit, I quit, I quit", his partner whispered under her breath.

"Herself!" their classmate replied. "I'm so _happy_! I've always been a huge fan!"

"Creepy cosplayer", Ladybug corrected in a whisper that didn't even register in the other girl's brain.

"YOU CAN'T JUST TRANSFORM BACK LIKE THAT!" Chat Noir yelled.

Chloé blinked a few times, showing about as much understanding of the seriousness of the situation as she had of the danger posed by a fish-themed supervillain who wanted to turn the city into a new ocean.

"Why not?" she asked.

"IT'S DANGEROUS!" her fellow heroes screamed.

"WHY?"

Chat Noir and Ladybug looked at each other. The best answer they could come up with was "REASONS". They spent a moment browsing their memories of superhero movies.

"BECAUSE IT COULD ENDANGER YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!" Ladybug snapped.

Then again, it could hardly endanger the mayor and Sabrina more than their being acquainted with Chloé to begin with.

"BECAUSE IF SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS TO ONE OF US, WE DON'T WANT TO BE ABLE TO SELL THE OTHERS OUT!" Chat Noir added.

Their new "teammate" blinked again.

"You must not be as good at your job as I thought if you are afraid of that", she replied.

She was only saved from a violent death by the impending detransformation of Ladybug and Chat Noir, who both ran off at that point, as their miraculous blinked.

 

###

 

"I can't believe you picked her", Plagg said.

Waspp rolled her eyes and filed nails she didn't possess with a yellow emery board.

"I don't see what you mean", she replied, not bothering to look at her fellow Kwami.

"She is a PEST!" Plagg yelled. "She won't lift a finger to help and you know that!"

"Plagg, sweetheart, do stop questioning my choices of Bees, or I may start criticizing your choices of fleabags."

Tikki quietly landed between the two other kwamis, as she could see Plagg's aggravation was slowly dissolving his feline stoicism, as well as his sanity.

"You have to admit Chloé is a little… Different from your usual candidates."

"How so?"

The red kwami tried to define how exactly Chloé Bourgeois differed from a bloodthirsty amazon, a pirate woman with a taste for stabbing akumas (and people), and several generations of princesses.

"Less… More…"

Waspp blew on her non-existing nails, put the emery board away, and applied orange eyeshadow to her cheeks.

"Chloé will be fantastic", she insisted.

 

###

 

Three weeks and seven akumas later, Queen Bee was yet to display any kind of fighting abilities. Her proficiency with a smartphone's camera was, however, significantly improving.

Ladybug managed to extract Waspp from Chloé's purse to give the kwami her opinion on the matter.

"WHY?" she asked. "WHY? Do you want ME to turn into an akuma?"

"What a temper you have", Waspp replied. "I can't believe Tikki would pick someone as unsuited to Ladybug's role as you!"

Marinette stuffed the tiny creature back into that bag.

 

###

 

One more week and two akumas later, Tikki and Plagg cornered their fellow kwami, during math class, inside Chloé's oversized handbag.

"You have to admit she's not doing anything", the red kwami quietly pointed out.

"I know!" Waspp replied. "Isn't that nice?"

The two others stared at her.

The yellow kwami rolled her eyes and mouthed a few variations of the word "dunces".

"It's the entire point!" she explained. "She is not doing anything."

"I don't get it", Plagg commented.

Waspp mouthed a few more insults.

"She. Is. Not. Doing. Anything. See, I could have picked a warrior, but then again, what for? I figured I could just deal with the root of everyone's issues."

Tikki and Plagg gaped. Waspp ignored their bewildered expression. She admired her reflection in a pocket mirror.

"You wouldn't believe how much effort the girl would expend not to have to work", she said. "By now, she has more than figured out that the less stingy she is, the less akumas she has to handle."

 

###

 

For someone like Chloé, whose primary instinct - rather than being survival - was shoving her superiority into everyone's face, concealing one's secret identity was an accomplishment of the "kayaking across the Atlantic ocean" variety. She tried her best, however. For a while.

For the first few weeks, she handled her duties as well as she handled her homework: she made sure Chat Noir and Ladybug dispatched the Akumas, and she reaped the praise.

Eventually, however, Queen Bee had to fight an enemy on her own.

She had not expected Chat Noir to be defeated so easily by the empty boxes the Birthday Breaker was using to capture people. She had not expected Ladybug to be _late._ It was all very unfair. Her manicure had just been done. It was a good hair day. She really did not want to have to transform and save the city.

She waited three solid minutes after Chat Noir's capture, waiting for Ladybug to show up. Then she transformed, and tried to stop the Birthday Breaker the way Chloé Bourgeois dealt with the rest of the world: by ordering him around.

That approach was not very successful on supervillains. He smacked a gift box in her face.

And then he died.

Well, not really, but Queen Bee did demonstrate that she was perfectly able to fight, and that "death from above" was not nearly as scary as "death by pavement after a very long fall". By the time she caught the Birthday Breaker - a second before he would have crashed into a very nice square of cement - he was promising to dedicate his life to goodness and generosity.

Then, Queen Bee took the corrupted birthday card the Akuma was hiding in, shouting at Birthday Breaker in a high pitched voice all the while, and tore the card in two.

"I swear if I get the slightest bruise", she told the villain, catching the Akuma in her magical pendant, "let alone a black eye, you will learn what it means to have a _really bad day_!"

She released the cleansed Akuma, shooed it away, and joined Chat Noir, who was still sitting in a rapidly disappearing gift box.

"You are scary", he said, gaping.

"You were useless", she replied. "Now where is Ladybug? I shouldn't have to do her work for her!"

 

###

 

Chloé did not like to fight Akumas at all, which - as Waspp had planned - forced her to go about her days in a somewhat more magnanimous way. Not that it made her nice by any stretch of the imagination, but the amount of students who turned into monsters after being confronted to her special brand of human interactions declined.

She also managed to get Alya and Nino to snort soda out of their noses.

The two of them had no idea why Adrien considered her a friend. To the casual observer, or the more attentive observer, or even the stalker armed with a professional grade telescope, the hints of her having any kind of benevolent feelings towards the young model were rare.

That being said, her romantic inclinations were now targeting a certain redhead, which made her behavior around Adrien a little less sociopathic.

She still hated Marinette, but no longer because she was a rival in her plans to marry the richest boy in town and get her wardrobe filled with splendid dresses of the newest Gabriel collection.

"Why don't you just _tell_ that silly girl you like her?" she told the boy when the rest of their class still tiptoed around the issue. "If she batted her eyelashes at you even a _little_ more, people would start thinking she's sending braille messages."

"Er, 'morse'?"

" _Wha_ tever. Do I have to keep watching you follow her around like a sad little puppy? It's getting annoying. She. Likes. You. Go. For. It. Raaaah."

Adrien stared at her, a little surprised (he had not seen Chloé display actual concern since the advent of puberty), then sighed.

"But that's the problem. I don't think she likes the _real_ me", he muttered.

"Wah, wah, wah, that is so sad, I am gonna cry. Boohoo."

The boy took a breath as deep as the hurt he felt (on a scale of one to ten: well outside Chloé's emotional range). He turned away.

"She's not going to like the real you if you keep pretending to be someone else", his childhood friend added, rolling her eyes. "Just be yourself. Unless yourself is that weirdo who flirts like an addled drunk vampire. Then by all means keep pretending."

 

###

 

Adrien asked Marinette out. She said nothing. Alya helpfully translated "nothing" into "yes".

 

###

 

It occurs to me that Nathanaël was not mentioned in this chapter at all, which is an horrendous failing on my part. Let's remedy that: I think we can safely assume he was alive and well, doing something, somewhere.

 

###

 

More seriously, Nathanaël was still in an undefined relationship with Chloé, was still following her like a shadow, and was still not dating her, despite reenacting every romantic moment from every Disney movie under the sun when he abducted her.

Things were good. Well, they were not _terrible._

Then, Chloé's urge to brag surpassed her capacity to obey Ladybug's sharp and repeated orders to keep her identity a secret. Three months in (a whole eternity in Chloé time), she decided that telling _one_ person about her Queen Bee alter-ego couldn't be that bad. After all, Batman's butler knew who he was. That journalist lady had certainly discovered Superman's identity at some point. And Chloé knew who the Evillustrator was, so he deserved to know her secret too. Well, she didn't know if he deserved it, but she wanted a biased, rose-tinted opinion on her new stripes.

On a radiant spring afternoon, she somehow convinced Nathanaël to avoid fun, oxygen, and direct sunlight, and to spend his time alone with her in her bedroom instead (as you can surmise, it took near zero convincing).

"You will never guess what's new!" she teased, standing in front of him with a hand of her hip, in a pose she had practiced for three hours in front of her mirror.

As any boy confronted to a guess of that kind, Nathanaël panicked. Clothes? No. Haircut? No. Earrings? No. Necklace? No, that one was two months old. Mild tan? No.

"I, uh, I-"

Thankfully for him, his not-quite-girlfriend was not interested in voices and thoughts that were not her own. It saved him from a divaish episode on how inattentive and unappreciative he was.

"This!" she exclaimed, having run out of her thirty seconds of patience. She had been waiting for months. "Waspp! Transform me!"

Nathanaël stared in stunned disbelief as a yellow little spirit jumped out of her purse, rolled its eyes, and vanished into her necklace. Then he watched Chloé turn into Queen Bee, and his stunned disbelief turned to terrified horror.

"Look!" the superheroin said, whirling. "Isn't it nice?"

"Ah."

"It's _yellow_. Perfect for my completion. Also, it's striped. It's sliming, don't you think?"

"You don't really need slimming clothes", he replied by reflex, while his brain was busy blowing up.

She grinned, turning more slowly so he could admire her suit, then she sat right next to him.

"I figured we'd make quite a pair", she told him, brushing his hair away from his face.

Nathanaël smiled, and didn't answer.

"Won't we?" she insisted.

He took a shaky breath.

"Yes. Yes. Of course we will", he replied.

 

###

 

Nathanaël smiled the entire afternoon, and praised Chloé's looks, and listened to her adventures as Queen Bee (and to all of the complaining inserted into her tales). He excused himself at five, pretending his mother would be waiting for him, walked out of the Bourgeois residence, and promptly transformed into the Evillustrator. He couldn't hold the transformation in. He had tried for as long as possible, despite the voice talking into his head and urging him to snatch that miraculous from Queen Bee's neck.

"No", he murmured. "I can't."

Hawk Moth sighed.

"Now, boy", he said. "I like you and I fully understand your feelings for such an evil, cold-hearted girl, but you have to remember this business arrangement was meant to be mutually beneficial."

"I can't hurt her!" the Evillustrator protested.

"I'm not sure you even have to. She just spent two hours complaining that fighting monsters ruined her beauty sleep and prevented her from getting enough manicures a week. You can probably just ask nicely."

They both knew it wouldn't work: as focused on her appearance as she was, Chloé was too much of a superhero fangirl to surrender her (figurative) cape, as much as she whined about it.

"Just _do_ something, Evillustrator, or I will be taking your powers away."

Nathanaäel didn't answer. He waited and waited, expecting Hawk Moth to add something, but the voice was gone.

The boy transformed back into himself, tried to find a solution to the problem at hand, and gave a phone call.

 

###

 

Adrien hurried to the park, a bit concerned by Nathanaël's phone call. His classmate had sounded scared. He had said he needed help.

The blond found him waiting on a bench, rocking nervously. The redhead jumped to his feet when he saw him.

"Are you okay?" Adrien asked. "What happened?"

The other boy hesitated.

"I-", he started. "I…"

The blond tried to encourage him,

"Yes?" he said in a soft voice. "What's the problem?"

Nathanaël took both his hands.

"I'm sorry", he said.

Adrien blinked, going to concerned to anxious.

"Sorry about what?"

"I don't really have a c-choice", Nathanaël muttered. "It's literally you, or me."

"W-"

"And I really need to keep being me", the redhead finished, transforming into the Evillustrator. "Nothing personal."

And, on those words, he grabbed Adrien's ring and pulled it off his finger.

 

####

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW IS THIS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER? WHERE DID SO MANY WORDS COME FROM? WHAT HAPPENED? GROAR.
> 
> Don't worry, this is just me freaking out about my chapters breeding like rabbits as usual.


	8. Chapter 8

 "Now that I think about it", Plagg said as Adrien started to race out of the park, "maybe cleansing the boy of that evil spirit should have been higher in our list of priorities."

"YOU DON'T SAY?" Adrien replied, holding onto his kwami for dear life, so he would not be dragged away with his miraculous.

The Evillustrator had escaped right after grabbing the ring, and was out of sight already.

Thankfully, Marinette's home was close by, and she would be able to contact Ladybug, or so Adrien hoped.

"We all agreed that cutting the child to pieces to get the Akuma out was not an acceptable solution", Plagg pointed out from under the teenager's shirt.

"Well, I'm starting to reconsider", Adrien muttered, without meaning it.

He was starting to feel some resistance, as if a gigantic magnet was pulling Plagg away. He ran faster. A few moments later, he barged into the bakery.

"IsMarinethere?" he asked her mother, lungs on fire.

He was suddenly glad for the long years of excruciatingly time-consuming afterschool activities his father had forced upon him. Without all of that training, he would probably have killed himself running so fast.

"She's upstairs", mister Dupain replied. "Do you want me to call her?"

"Yespleasethanksgasp."

The wait was unbearable. As soon as Marinette walked down the stairs, Adrien dragged her out, and towards the closest alley.

"Can you contact Ladybug NOW?" he asked, frantic.

"I can call her? What's happening? Is there a new villain?"

"The Evillustrator got Chat Noir's miraculous. He's probably bringing it to Hawk Moth as we s-"

Plagg popped out from under his shirt, gasping, and flew backwards towards the park. Adrien ran after him, grabbed him with both hands, and tried to hold on. The pull was so strong by now that Adrien was dragged along with the spirit.

"Tikki!" he heard Marinette call from behind him.

_Tikki?_

And he was joined by Ladybug, who wrapped the string of her yo-yo around Plagg. She kept the yo-yo itself in her hand, and watched as Plagg was torn out of Adrien's hands. The Kwami yelped and tried to fly back to them, but barely managed to slow down a little. In Ladybug's hand, the yo-yo was spinning, that infinite string growing longer and longer.

"I'll follow him!" Ladybug said. "And didn't believe I'd ever say that, but _get Queen Bee_!"

She started running after the kwami, jumping over obstacles and people and trying not to let him out of her sight. As fast as she ran, however, Plagg was starting to distance her.

At least, as long as he was tied to her yo-yo, she would be able to find him.

Adrien turned to confirm Marinette was gone.

He breathed in, shaken to the core.

Then, he raced to the Bourgeois residence.

 

###

 

"I have to admit I'm pleased", Hawk moth said. "It took _some_ time, and it's not the miraculous I expected, but no one so far managed what you just did. It was deceitful, clever, and strangely efficient."

"Thank you, sir", the Evillustrator replied.

He wasn't proud of himself. But, halas, teenagers in love have little sense, and he felt that his ability to turn into a supervillain was necessary to keep pursuing that girl he was "not dating at all". His normal self had "no spark", "no fire". Chloé believed she deserved the moon and the stars, and was not one to lose time with someone who could not literally deliver both. He didn't want to lose her, he didn't want to fight her, and - if he had to be honest - he did not want to be robbed of his assertive other self. A strange mix of lack of confidence, infatuation and demonic possession could have pushed _anyone_ down the wrong path, fate of the world be damned. Nathanaël had resisted longer than most boys in his situation would have.

He cleared his throat.

"Now", he asked, "not that I mean to be difficult or anything, but where exactly should I bring that ring?"

There was an awkward silence. Hawk Moth coughed.

"I knew I had forgotten to mention something."

A swarm of black butterflies joined the young supervillain, who had so far been running "as far away from Adrien as possible".

"Just follow them."

The villain sighed.

"Why butterflies?" he muttered. "Why couldn't it be 'follow the spiders'?"

 

###

 

Adrien had reason to believe Chloé's nails were polished enough to be used as mirrors. She seemed to spend most of her time taking care of them. When the boy barged into her room, she was equipped with an emery board and no interest for his woes whatsoever.

"Help", he gasped. He tried to formulate an entire sentence but found his lungs had closed up shop. "Bee."

"Yes?" she drawled.

"Need. Bee", Adrien said, taking a deep breath. "The Evillustrator took Chat Noir's miraculous."

Waspp peeked out of Chloé's jewelry box.

The blonde raised her eyebrows.

"Nathanaël did _what_ now? And wait a second, I don't see how anything related to 'Bee' concerns me."

"He's Chat Noir", Waspp helpfully provided. "He knows who you are."

"WHAT?"

"IDENTITY REVEALS LATER!" Adrien shouted. "He. Took. My. Miraculous."

"That's… Strange", Chloé commented. "He showed no interest in mine."

"I suppose he… Wait a second. When did Nathanaël 'show no interest in your miraculous', exactly? You _told him_ about it?"

"Of course I did. Who else was I gonna confide in?"

"I… Don't know? Maybe not a SUPERVILLAIN?"

"Pleeeeeease. He was barely villainous at all, since that fourth time he abducted me."

"Well, he obviously decided to make up for that!" Adrien snapped. "Are you totally-"

He saw Waspp yawn and use a gold ring as a bracelet. As he understood that trying to argue with Chloé was akin to trying to argue with a brick wall, he turned to the Kwami.

"How could you _let_ her?"

The little creature put the ring down and gave him a bored look.

"I find Plagg and Tikki's strategy to be lacking both in efficiency and boldness. Your current approach of the situation is reactive, not proactive, and has established a regrettable status-quo where you and Ladybug idle around, waiting for Hawk Moth to make a move, which you then counter. It leads to a slow, unending war with no real stakes, where neither side has incentive to pursue the other aggressively enough to inflict meaningful damage. That tactic is lazy, conservative, and annoys me to no end. Because there is literally no end in sight. I figured I'd help things along."

"Help… What?"

"The Evillustrator is leading us straight to Hawk Moth. You are welcome."

 

###

 

Ladybug caught up with the Evillustrator over the Pont des Arts, after a long race across town. He had a flying carpet, and she had none, so he would have been much faster than her, had he not been following butterflies. Butterflies were notoriously bad at flying in a straight line. A villain more efficient than Hawk Moth would probably have picked a more practical species of insects for his familiars. There was a lot to pick from, even if you wanted to keep the whole evil vibe: yellowjacket, firefly… Even spiders, really. Spiders would have crawled their way to their destination, not frolicked around and followed every gust of wind.

She pulled Plagg to her, grabbing her yoyo's strings with both hands. The kwami squeaked, so wrapped into that string by now that he looked like a piece of roast.

"Nathanaël" she pleaded. "Please give me the miraculous back! You don't have to do this!"

The Evillustrator's shoulders sagged.

"Did you have to show up? Did you? Now I have to take yours too, I hope you are happy!"

"Okay, A, that's not a problem, because I won't let you. B, you DON'T have to obey Hawk Moth. You can resist him! You've been yourself for weeks, don't try to make me believe you can't control the transformation!"

"I'll have nothing to control if I have to give it back!" the boy retorted.

"YOU ARE POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT. Giving it back seems like the obvious choice!"

"I wouldn't antagonize the boy possessed by an evil spirit", Plagg whispered.

"I am _not_ giving the Evillustrator up", the villain yelled. "I need this. It makes everything better."

Ladybug gaped, overwhelmed by the degree of nonsense.

"Are you _kidding me?_ "

"Possessed. By. An. Akuma", Plagg commented.

"Right."

Maybe Nathanaël behaved a little less homicidally than the rest of Hawk Moth's victims, but it didn't mean everything was alright with his mind.

"You really don't need the Akuma", she insisted. "You're a good person. You're a great boy!"

"Well that's easy for you to say! You are popular! You are strong! Everyone in our class likes you! And you. Are. A. Liar", he retorted. "But Chat Noir won't be teaming up with _you_ this time."

That answer forced Marinette to follow several trains of thought:

A) He knew who she was.

B) She was not under the impression that "everyone in their class" liked her.

C) If Hawk Moth was listening in, she was doomed, just like her family and friends.

D) Well, no, Chat Noir was not in a position to team up with anyone right now.

E) Wait wait wait, why the emphasis on "you"?

While her mind was hosting as many figurative trains as King's Cross station, the Evillustrator put the ring on.

 

###

 

"Tell Waspp that we weren't ready for this, please", Adrien said as a flying Queen Bee carried him over Paris' roofs.

He really didn't like seeing his feet dangle above several stories worth of empty air. He hoped Chloé's phone would not ring, because she was not above forgetting she was holding him before answering a call. He wished he had thought of tying himself to her instead of letting her grab him by the armpits before taking off. He would definitely have felt better tied up to Chloé (it was not a sentence that crossed his mind often).

"What about you tell her yourself later?" Queen Bee retorted. "I really don't care about all of that whining. I'm sure you and Ladybug will handle things just fine, like always."

"'Me and Ladybug'?" Adrien repeated.

"Why, of course. Who else?"

The boy was starting to understand why Ladybug could grow that irritated at Chloé. The blonde was still his friend, but she was not the most cautious of them, and certainly not the most responsible. It could get tiring, even when you were used to it.

"I don't know? YOU?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I have no training whatsoever, as Ladybug keeps pointing out."

Adrien tried to look up, and bumped his head against Chloé's chin.

"Aouch", he said, while Queen Bee did not even blink because she was pretty much invulnerable. "You have no training because you have refused it over and over again!"

"Be that as it may, it's too late for me to learn now."

"You know what? If we get out of this alive, you are going to learn fencing."

"What?"

"Fencing", Adrien repeated. "Because you'll join me one evening a week during my lessons. And, after the lessons, I will be training you. Properly."

"Yes, well, I'll pass. I have zumba on Fridays."

"I DIDN'T SAY YOU HAD A CHOICE."

"I always have a choice. The trick is not to let anyone else have one."

This. This was why so many people turned into Akumas around her. He sighed.

"Mondays?" he tried.

"Yoga."

"Thuesdays?"

"I get my hair done."

"Wednes-"

Queen Bee stopped mid-flight.

"Didn't you just tell me you were Chat Noir?"

"Waspp did?"

"Then who _is_ that?" Chloé said, pointing at two moving silhouettes with her chin.

On the roofs, not so far from them, Ladybug was fighting a red-haired Chat Noir. Adrien stared down in horror.

"Oh", Queen Bee murmured after a moment. "Oh."

 

###

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to stop saying next chapter is last chapter because I've yet to manage to accurately estimate how many words I have left to write.


	9. Chapter 9

Chloé Bourgeois was, on rare occasions, able to show some awareness of the events unfolding around her. Granted, it only seemed to happen when Prada released a new bag, or when someone showed a weakness she could exploit.

Once in a blue moon, however… And this author realizes that "once in a blue moon" might be a vast overstatement… She demonstrated some perceptiveness. It wasn't _much_ perceptiveness but, considering it came from Chloé, it made people turn and stare.

"They forget everything, don't they?" she asked Adrien.

"What?"

"When you free people from the Akumas. They forget everything."

It wasn't a question he had expected to hear, because Queen Bee should have been informed of that by her kwami, and because their entire class had been turned to akumas by that point. They had to have mentioned their amnesia at some point.

Maybe it was a rhetorical question.

"I… Guess. Yes, they do."

She looked at the fight between Ladybug and Chat Noir - Chat Roux? - crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and fumed.

"Stay here", she said, as if he had any kind of choice: she had landed on a roof, and he didn't see a way down.

And she flew straight into the fight.

 

###

 

Each Kwami is unique. They are the living, undying, and really squishy embodiments of an idea, of a concept, of a belief. They are, in other words, small (and very tiny) gods. As such, they have a wide array of personalities, ranging from Tikki's warm kindness to Plagg's charming disposition. One could describe Vixx as cunning, Makko as idealistic, Zetta as very very smart, and Waspp…

When the other kwamis have to comment on her (an activity they avoid), they stick to "she's not usually that… sociopathic?". They lie their tiny butts off. Waspp is the godly representation of a _wasp_ , people. Think about it.

If there's one good thing to be said about her, it's "she gets things done".

Now, when you know that kwamis pick miraculous holders in the way that best serves their interests, the way hers behave becomes much less surprising.

 

###

 

When Ladybug saw Queen Bee land between her and Not-Chat-Noir, she had a split second of shock (not being used to see Queen Bee join a fight of her own volition, ever). Then, she felt relief. Maybe they were not going to die. Maybe they could save humanity from a miraculous-powered Hawk Moth.

Queen Bee grabbed her by the arm and threw her across the Seine.

Ladybug crashed into a wall, but jumped to her feet and yoyoed back to the other side.

"WHAT SIDE ARE YOU ON?" she yelled.

Queen Bee gave her a dismissive little wave of the hand, while Nathanaël, perched on a lamppost, stared at her in confusion.

"I'm handling this", Chloé announced. "Shoo, shoo."

"Handling. This."

"Yes."

"Handling. THIS", Ladybug repeated.

"Yes! Now go away, this is getting distracting."

"I'm not going ANYWHERE! Don't you realize what will happen if we don't get that miraculous back? Don't you know what Hawk Moth will do if he gets his hands on it?"

"Oh please. Hawk Moth has been active since ancient Egypt and the world is still undestroyed. He's even less efficient than my father's political opponents."

The evil Chat Noir, previously known as the Evillustrator, previously known as Nathanaël, decided their argument was, indeed, distracting, and a perfect opportunity to flee. He jumped to the closest roof and started running.

Ladybug gave chase.

Queen Bee flew up, dove, and crashed into the villain with her full (low, and strictly maintained) weight. They landed a few floors down. Not-Chat Noir jumped away.

"Don't you DARE making me to do that again!" Chloé shrieked. "My hair is RUINED."

Now, even possessed with an Akuma, even in possession of a miraculous, and even dispossessed of most of his true self, Nathanaël recognized that tone of voice. He froze in panic. He swallowed hard. Then, he remembered how and why he had landed himself in Chat Noir's overly tight pants to begin with.

"Why did you have to show up?" he yelled back. "Now I have to take your miraculous too!"

Queen Bee rolled her eyes.

"Nonsense", she retorted, extending her hand. "Give me that ring."

"What?"

"Give. Me. The. Ring. Come on! Hurry! I don't have all day!"

Ladybug, still on the roofs, inched closer and tried to find the best angle from which to attack. She didn't have a clear line of sight, or she would have wrapped her yoyo around Nathanaël already. It was her only chance to capture him: the Evillustrator's powers were scarier than Chat Noir's (at least when he avoided using Cataclysm, like Nathanaël), but Chat Noir was _fast_. Taking him down in combat would take a while, and they didn't have a while. She wasn't even sure they had five minutes. Was Hawk Moth on his way?

"I need the ring!" Nathanaël snapped. "He'll take the Akuma away if I don't give it to him!"

"Oh boo-hoooo! You might have to go back to being poor, sparkless, wallflower Nathanaël", Chloé railed.

Someone paying close attention might have noticed it was a very poor, lousy attempt at a joke, and that she in fact did not actually think that way, but her boyfriend suffered from massive self-confidence issues. He was prone to negative thinking, catastrophizing, and tended to disqualify the positives. Also, it was a terrible thing to say, even to someone with Chloé's level of assurance.

Ladybug winced. That was how you got people turned into supervillains.

"Not happening", Nathanaël retorted, voice razor-sharp.

He jumped back.

Marinette finally had a clear shot: she threw her yoyo at him like a lasso, and caught him.

Gloved hands grabbed her ears from behind.

###

  


There was nothing quite like watching disaster happen while you stood to the side, watching, powerless, listening to the sound of your screams. Adrien felt like Bruce Wayne.

Well, no one had died (yet), but things were dire.

Nathanaël was Chat Noir.

Marinette was Marinette.

Adrien was Adrien.

Hawk Moth was not actually a figment of Plagg's imagination, as Adrien had begun to suspect.

And Queen Bee? Queen Bee was doing what you could expect from Chloé in the face of a danger that threatened her personally: she was running away. Nathanaël didn't follow her: he was staring at Hawk Moth, hesitant. As for Hawk Moth… It looked like he was ranting, stomping and raging. He sure was gesturing, and pointing at the tiny dot in the sky that was Queen Bee. A moment later, that tiny dot had vanished.

A butterfly-themed villain who didn't have the ability to fly had kind of missed the point.

Adrien looked down the roof he was standing on, trying to estimate how many bones he would break if he jumped down. Possibly more than by having a hand to hand combat with Hawk Moth. He had to help Marinette, however: Hawk Moth had pinned her down with his cane, and she didn't seem able to free herself (though she had landed a few nice kicks).

Queen Bee landed behind Adrien, and he nearly jumped from the roof. She grabbed him by the back of the shirt.

"Okay, what do we do now?" she asked.

They watched as Hawk Moth discovered that earrings and costumes with hoods didn't mix.

"I don't know. We need to help Marinette!" Adrien replied.

"Ugh, can you _believe_ that dork is Ladybug?"

"WELL I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE A MIRACULOUS SO THERE."

"No need to get testy! Of course I got a miraculous. I have potential. Everyone tells me I'll go far."

"We need to help Marinette", Adrien repeated, deciding that maybe the fight with the two supervillains was more important than the fight with a classmate, at that precise point in time. "Can you get me near that roof? You'll have to fight Hawk Moth and… Chat Noir on your own."

"I'm not fighting anyone", Chloé retorted. "Do you know how long it took me to get nails this polished?"

"There isn't anyone else to do it for you this time!"

"You have very little faith in me", she commented. "There is _always_ someone willing to make my life easier."

She wrapped her arms around him and flew up.

  


###

  


For Nathanaël, Meeting Hawk Moth was eerie, and not just because the voice in his head had sounded a little more… A little less… Stylish. As far as supervillain costumes went, this one was… Well, if Nathanaël had been given ten minutes, a pencil, and the Death's Head Hawkmoth wikipedia page, he could have suggested some improvements. Not much. Just changing the color scheme. Making the whole thing a little more armored. Adding some patterns. Getting rid of the cane.

That butterfly necktie pin was okay.

"You did a fantastic job, boy", the villain said, trying to insert the miraculous into his ear.

As he would not remove his hood, nor his gloves, he was having difficulties. Ladybug's kwami also kept headbutting him.

"I will not let you use my powers, do you hear me?" she was swearing. "Never!"

Hawk Moth swatted her away.

"We shouldn't have any difficulty getting that third miraculous from young miss Bour-"

Young miss Bourgeois dropped from the skies, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him up in the air at full speed. She kept going up, and up, and up, and up, aaaand up. And then she dropped him.

Chloé was a liar, of the most horrible kind, but she was perfectly sincere that there was always someone, or something, willing to make her life easier. She probably thought Isaac Newton had invented gravity just to please her. The force sure served her well. As - unlike Hawk Moth - her transformation was not only insect themed but also functional, she was able to navigate the air with much more grace and ease. She dove and accelerated, while the supervillain just… Fell. At the expected speed for his size and mass.

Queen Bee landed next to Nathanaël.

"That should give us a few seconds", she announced, with a bored look up.

The boy took a step back, tense.

"You won't change my mind."

"I said a few seconds! This is the point where you surrender Chat Noir's ring and stop being difficult!"

"I'm not being difficult! I'm never, _never_ returning to being just Nathanaël again!"

Queen Bee groaned, throwing her hands up.

"Ooooh, you all drive me insane with your secrets and your double identities and how they make you entirely different people! Newsflash: the transformation gave you _superpowers_ , not a new personality!"

"Like _you_ would have any idea! Becoming Queen Bee didn't change you at all. It's different for us!"

She let out a long suffering sigh.

"Oh _really_? The costume dictates who you are? Because I'm yet to hear a pun or a pick up line, _Chat Noir_."

Nathanaël blinked.

Chloé rolled her eyes.

"Seriously. You dimwits get a mask, think 'no consequences, no accountability', and stop worrying so much, that's ALL. I just knew all along consequences and accountability don't exist!"

Hawk Moth crashed a few feet away, leaving an Hawk Moth shaped hole in the street. He jumped out of it, a bit dizzy, but otherwise uninjured. Queen Been whirled to him, while her words made their long and tortuous way through Nathanaël's mind.

"Don't you dare interrupt!" she yelled.

She had not yet learned that supervillains didn't feel compelled to obey orders. He raised a hand. Dark magic glimmered around it.

Queen Bee clicked her tongue.

"You've got to be kidding me. Who is it that you intend to victimize? Fashion? I'm sorry to say, but Marinette has you outmatched."

Nathanaël looked up at those words. Marinette was no longer pinned to the roof. Actually, Adrien was with her, and her kwami was depositing a pair of earrings in her hands. Nathanaël had to admit being dropped from the stratosphere and smashing into concrete _was_ distracting. Hawk Moth had probably not noticed he had dropped Ladybug's miraculous.

The supervillain attacked Chloé, with a blast of dark energy.

He looked really impressive, for that split-second before Ladybug's feet connected with his face.

"Finally", Queen Bee mumbled, turning back to Nathanaël.

She paid no further attention to the fierce, near-apocalyptic deathmatch unfolding behind her.

"Where were we?" she asked.

"Masks, accountability, consequences", he murmured, heart beating.

"Ah! Yes! I was saying you were being an idiot."

"I… It's… Not just that", Nathanael said, his throat clenching a little. His voice became a strangled whisper. "I just… You wouldn't want to be around me anymore. I wouldn't be able to make things special."

She huffed and waved her hand dismissively.

"Now, that's just ridiculous. Any place I am in is inherently special."

The boy's heart fluttered. He could translate "Chloé Bourgeois" to French - at least when it came with that slight blush - and he got the meaning behind those words just fine. He went tomato red (it complimented his eyes nicely… NOT). He smiled a little. And then, a bit too overwhelmed to resist the urge, he kissed her.

He vaguely heard the Pont des Arts collapse. He ignored that, and wrapped his arms around Queen Bee.

She fumbled for her phone, and took a picture of the kiss. Aside from the shocking image of a red-haired Chat Noir locking lips with a hero who was NOT Ladybug, she also captured the escape of a blackish, violet butterfly, as it made its way out of Nathanaël's heart.

She pulled away from the boy as she noticed the Akuma, which she captured and purified. She shooed it away.

"Ring?" she asked her boyfriend.

The redhead hesitated, then removed the miraculous from his finger. He transformed back. The black cat kwami reappeared.

"Get. Waspp. Out. So. I. Can. Kill. Her", he growled.

Queen Bee pushed him away and looked around. She located Adrien, who was running to them, and threw him his ring. The young model caught it and promptly put it on.

"Thanks!"

Chloé ignored him. A few months earlier, or even a few weeks, she would have been all over Adrien grinning like that, and actually thanking her, and _owing_ her. However, she had more pressing matters on her mind. She looked at Nathanaël - normal Nathanaël, all pale and red haired, and possibly single-eyed (you really couldn't tell) - and took a deep breath. The expression on her face could have been interpreted as mild concern by someone equipped with a good lie detector and a magnifier.

"Do you-"

She meant to say "remember what happened while you were possessed", but she didn't get to finish her sentence. Sparkless, fireless Nathanaël grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her again, proving that his memory was working just fine, thank you very much.

It left her speechless. For ten seconds.

"Well", she said.

She cleared her throat. Nathanaël didn't quite grin, but he gave her a quiet smile. In the background, Ladybug and a freshly transformed Chat Noir were destroying Paris' architecture, using Hawk Moth as a wrecking ball.

"WELL", Chloé repeated, composing herself. "That's one less problem. Now let's get out of here", she finished, transforming back.

He blinked, and looked at Chat Noir and Ladybug.

"You're not going to help them?"

"Why would I? They're doing just fine", she replied, grabbing his arm. "And I'm starving. You're buying me pancakes, aren't you?"

 

###

 

"What do we do, now?" Chat Noir asked, because he had never made plans past Hawk Moth's defeat, and was sincerely lost. "Do we retire?"

Ladybug crossed her arms, watching the parisian tailor they had freed from evil walk away in a state of mild confusion.

"There will always be bank robberies", she said. "And planes to rescue. And rodents of unusual size."

"I don't think they… Shutting up now."

The tailor turned a corner. Ladybug absentmindedly repaired the city.

Chat Noir looked down at his miraculous, gasped, and ran to a side alley before his transformation ran out. Ladybug followed him. She turned back to Marinette. He turned back to Adrien. They stared at each other, flushing. They lost the ability to use words. There was a short, awkward moment of panic. Then, they both chuckled.

"That was quite the _chat_ -ssé croisé", Adrien said.

"You silly cat", Marinette replied.

"I can't believe you turned me down when I confessed!"

"I turned you down because I loved y… Agh. Agh."

"Aaaah! Where is the end of that sentence?"

"Fghhhrk."

 

###

 

This author is pleased to say that Adrien heard the end of that sentence very, very often.

As a matter of fact, Chloé ended up gracing Nathanaël with a sentence that somehow implied something similar. He could read between the lines, so he just replied "I love you too".

 

###

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand done!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
